Broc Feeney/Jamie Whincup – Car #88
Practice 1 – 14th (1:08.7706)
Practice 2 (co-drivers only) – First (1:08.4679)
Championship standings – Sixth (1463 points)
Shane van Gisbergen/Garth Tander – Car #97
Practice 1 – Fifth (1:08.1469)
Practice 2 (co-drivers only) – Second (1:08.5136)
Championship standings – First (2196 points)
Broc Feeney – Car #88
“Our only practice session this morning wasn’t too bad. It was a little bit of a messy session and I didn’t really put it together at the end, but it was a bit weird to only have one session today. You get in the car, do a few laps and all of a sudden you’re done for the day. I’ve got a few things to improve on for tomorrow, but we also tried a few things with JDub (Jamie Whincup) in the second session, so we have some stuff to look at overnight. We chose to do a qualifying simulation at the end of the practice session today, but I only got one lap in and I almost speared off at Turn 1 which made it a little difficult. In saying that, we learnt a bit off that run but we’ve definitely got some stuff to work on before tomorrow.”
Jamie Whincup – Car #88
“I really enjoyed our session today. It’s quite nice to be able to go for a ‘Friday fang’ with no pressure and just get out there to cut some laps. Clearly both cars are very good which they should be, but the car was comfortable and I like to think I contributed to the car’s program by making some small changes here-and-there and giving my feedback. All in all, I think we’re in a good place, and if anything the cars should get better as the weekend goes on. As soon as I got out there I said to myself “hey, I miss this,” but I’m happy I got the opportunity and it’s getting me even more excited for Bathurst.”
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
“It was cool to watch the co-drivers out there today. We don’t get the outsiders perspective as much anymore with one enduro race per year, so I sat at the back of the garage and watched the timing screen and listened to the engineers and both drivers – it was great to listen to hear how they work and how Andrew (Edwards, race engineer) communicates with the guys as well which was really cool. It was great to get that perspective on things and see the team working on the outside. I didn’t have a great session myself in the first practice session, but I got a lot of tips from the co-drivers watching the session because you see so much more when you’re out of the car.”
Garth Tander – Car #97
“That co-driver session was cool. I’ve never driven on the super-soft tyre before which was good to get my head around that. I felt comfortable in the car straight away, so it was good to get on with it and do a bit of development and tuning of the car to help Shane for the weekend. I’m really happy with how everything went and we were up the top of the time sheets for the whole session – it was just the GOAT [greatest of all time] (Jamie Whincup) who pipped us at the end. No doubt I’ll get him back at the first co-driver session at Bathurst! We didn’t really have a program to get through, but Andrew (Edwards, race engineer) said if I was comfortable in the car straight away I’d just get into it, and I did. It meant that my first run was a bit shorter so that we could get into doing some tuning of the car, so it was good to be able to contribute to the team’s weekend results and feel the change and response in the car which will help me for when we get to Bathurst.”
